Fig. 3

Correlations of RNA quality and quantity, tissue size, sample replicates of RNA of different species (orange: E. californica, blue: A. thaliana, grey: O. sativa, red: excluded samples) and developmental stages (symbols in figures A and B, stage 1: circle; stage 2: triangle; stage 3: square; stage 4: diamond). a RNA quality (RIN) in relation to yield [ng]. b relation of area of tissue used for extraction [mm²] to the RNA quantity [ng]. c Principal component analyses of the A. thaliana RNA Seq samples. S1—S4 show the different developmental stages, a–d corresponds to the four replicas per stage. Node shapes show total RNA (ng): low = 4–15 ng; middle = 16–30 ng; high = 31–45 ng; very high ≥ 46 ng. Different colors correspond to the total area of the collected samples (mm²): XS = 50–100 µm²; S = 101—300 µm²; M = 301—1000 µm²; L = 1001—2000 µm²; XL = 2001—3000 µm²